Stone Sculpture, 3D Printing and other interests…

The World’s Most Complex Sand Castle

One idea for a sculpture project that I’m toying with is to design a piece that is meant to be viewed from within, as well as, without. In other words you would be able to walk through the piece; experiencing a unique environment when in the middle of the sculpture.

The project in this item gives me some inspiration as to how this could be done. Interestingly they viewed their project as a form of architecture. Their focus is on pushing an interesting boundary: “How could an architecture that is entirely designed by algorithms look?” For me a key takeaway is this observation:

“One of the most astonishing things, and something we’re still trying to get our head around, is that it costs the exact same amount to 3-D print a plain box as it does to print the most elaborate form conceivable. The costs are the same, and the amount of time required is the same. It is only the outside dimensions that matter, so there is no longer any cost for complexity and no cost for ornament.”

You gotta love that the printer they ended up using is meant to fabricate molds and the sand models were not usually thought of as the finished piece.

Another example of a sculpture created with these printers can be seen here….

Click through to the full item for a video of them creating and assembling their sculpture.